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Fantasy painting of my Granddaughter

Hi all,

It has been quite a while since I've posted anything. I felt a little reluctant to post another WIP as it sometimes takes me a loooooong time to circle back and finish them up. Still, I proceed. Full disclosure, I did some tracing of my reference image, a photo I took on a "go to papa's workday." We were at a local food cart pod waiting for our brick oven pizza and she kept walking circles around the vacant benches. I was smitten by the carefree nature of her demeanor and wanted to capture it along with her likeness. I've never been great shakes at capturing a likeness so I gave in to tracing simple lines to establish the edges and remind myself of the edges where the light falls off. The rest is me playing in ArtRage as I do. :-) Below is my reference photo, the lines I traced and the work in progress. I hope you will enjoy this no matter how long it takes me to finish and post the final.

I think the challenging part will be matching the imaginary lighting of the tree, dolphin and other fantasy creatures with the real lighting on the girl, so that they all appear to be in the same world. Being less accomplished I myself would try to unify the lighting by making maquettes and trying to replicate the lighting of the reference picture. Better painters than I could do it all from imagination... which if I tried would look like the vintage or cheap special effects, whose mismatched fake looking lighting we are all familiar with!

It's so happy to see you back and post some of your fantastic works. Love to see your WIP and your granddaughter is adorable. Somehow your fantasy process made me think of Alice in wonderland. Can't wait to see more.

First, your reference photo. Trace away. You own the image and you are saving the time. Your painting speaks for itself so no worries. My comment centers around the clothes she is wearing the world through which she is romping. I like your choice of the blues against the darkness of her skin but because of the greenery you might toss some reds into her clothing to complement the greens and maybe play with whether a light, medium or the dark blue that you have now would work best for her. Her facial expression is bloody brilliant. It's delightful. The tracing is ok as long as you remember to unflatten her body. That is always a danger to keep an eye out for. I would lose the pants under the dress as that looks too modern and consider a lace slip. You put her in the woods so evaluate carefully your direction of light; how it is striking her and the objects around here and from which direction and are there multiple sources of light. What I see is a girl who has innocently stepped into the Spirit World (see Miyazaki's Spirited Away)--not a bad thing for her but can either be delightful or dangerous--that is the beauty of innocence--the bravery of not knowing. You have a beautiful grand model. Cherish her and make this painting one that counts. I hope my advice is not too presumptious. It was an honor to view your work.

Wow! It takes something just to consider creating a complex scene like this, let alone actually going through with it. Love the composition, the way the eye is drawn backwards through the levels; and the imagination!

This painting looks excellent so far yet I would make one suggestion. If you have another photo of this same girl I would look for some way to capture her leg/foot and details that are behind her as she is running. Somehow you need to at least have a little part of that leg/foot showing in the painting with possibly a bit darker shade of the same colors as the front thrusting foot. You might even consider expanding the back foot totally and add to the painting keeping in mind uniformity with the front foot and leg so she does not look deformed running. I realize the photo reference caught her image in a strange position where her back leg and foot are totally blocked out here yet for a painting showing some part of her back foot in harmony with the direction of her thrust forward and in harmony with her front leg seems like an addition to improve the painting.

The very first digital art program that I worked with Art Rage 1

You may visit my personally designed website at: www.stephenlopiano.com
There is one section full of pages there under the Digital Artwork category that is devoted entirely to paintings I have created with Art Rage.

That's impressive!

It is just stunning the way you've managed to throw your granddaughter into this beautifully created environment!
I like it very much.
My poorly done first try I've done yesterday,is looking nothing but embarrasing.